


Like a Fish Needs a Bicycle

by Metal_Chocobo



Series: Need a Hook [6]
Category: Women's Hockey RPF
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-29
Updated: 2016-03-29
Packaged: 2018-05-29 19:46:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6390784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Metal_Chocobo/pseuds/Metal_Chocobo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As the school year draws to a close Julie and Caro go cycling, have a picnic, and talk about the future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like a Fish Needs a Bicycle

“Thanks for going out with me,” Caro said.

“No problem,” Julie huffed, relieved she wasn’t gasping for air.

It wasn’t that Julie was out of shape—she had spent the last nine months constantly running, skating, and lifting—but she couldn’t remember the last time she had been on a bike. Her muscles were being used differently than she typically did and that put a strain on them. The trail was steeper than expected and Julie had never been all that comfortable with shifting gears. Plus, the rental bike had a completely different shifting mechanism than her old seven speed Trek, which was quietly rusting in her parents’ garage, which meant she kept shifting into the wrong gear when she did attempt to shift. This meant she had to focus entirely on her pedaling and staying on the path instead of taking in the sights and having a pleasant conversation like Julie imagined when Caro first asked her to go cycling with her.

Caro wasn’t having the slightest of issues. It was obvious she was intense about cycling, for both distance and rough terrain. Caro never did anything halfheartedly and she had even come out dressed in one of those awful skin tight lycra suits. Her forty-something gear mountain bike seemed to effortlessly glide along the hills, constantly putting her five to ten feet ahead of Julie. From her posture and the way she occasionally glanced back Julie could tell Caro was pacing herself to keep Julie within range; she could easily leave her in her dust. All Caro would have to do was put in a little effort.

They had been biking for two hours, which was an hour longer than Julie wanted. As far as she could tell the end was nowhere in sight. She regretted coming on this excursion and she suspected Caro felt the same way she did. She had to be holding back for Julie’s sake, Caro was too chivalrous to leave Julie in her dust, and that meant she wasn’t peddling her heart out. Exercise wasn’t fun unless you were able to go all out and push your limits. Julie knew that. She’d also swear Caro wasn’t getting any sort of major endorphin surge. She hoped her girlfriend wasn’t too bored.

“You doing okay?” Caro asked. “We can stop if you need a break.”

“I’m fine,” Julie insisted. She was struggling, but it wasn’t anything she couldn’t manage. She knew her limits and they hadn’t hit them yet.

Then they hit a huge hill. Julie had been so focused on not wiping out on the loose pebbles that had drifted onto the trail she hadn’t realized an incline was coming up. Otherwise she would have kicked her peddling into overdrive in hopes she could make it up the hill in one go. If she stopped, she knew she wouldn’t be able to start again. The slope was too much. Julie stalled out three quarters of the way up.

She realized she wasn’t going to make it seconds before the bicycle came to a stop. Julie rose from her seat to continue the climb, but then her head swam and the front tire wobbled dangerously. She hit the breaks and half fell off the bike in her dismount. Her legs were jelly and couldn’t support her. She immediately sank to the ground, sticking her head between her knees. At least Julie had gotten off before she wiped out. Once she felt a little better Julie’d grab her water bottle for rehydration. At the moment though, all she could manage was breathing.

Julie didn’t know how long she sat there for when she heard a bike screech to a halt beside her. Turning her head she watched Caro slowly dismount then crouch beside her. Julie smiled faintly at her, trying to dispel the look of concern on her girlfriend’s face.

“Hey, I was going around the bend and realized you weren’t behind me,” Caro said. She ran a hand up and down Julie’s back before settling it on her shoulders. “How do you feel?”

“Where’s the bend?” Julie asked.

“Maybe a dozen meters past the top of the hill.”

“Hmm.”

They sat silently in the shade beside the trail. Caro pulled a cloth out of her pannier and wet it with her water bottle. Then she laid it across Julie’s forehead. The cool water felt amazing against her skin and soon Julie felt normal again. She rose in one smooth motion then paused to double check that she really did feel okay. Caro tracked her movements and held her arms out as if she expected Julie to go down again.

“I’m good to continue,” Julie smiled, trying to relax her friend.

“You sure? We can stay here longer.”

“Yeah,” Julie grasped her bike’s handlebars then paused as she looked up at the top of the hill. “You know what, I’m walking up the rest of this hill.”

Caro nodded. Together they walked their bicycles up the hill. Caro kept staring at her as if she expected Julie to get faint again. It was a little annoying, as she wasn’t made of glass, but she had just gone down. If their positions were reversed she’d be worried too.

At the top the trail leveled off and Julie mounted her bike. Caro did as well, but this time she stuck close to Julie’s side, preferring to monitor her condition over riding ahead. They hadn’t gone a dozen yards when Julie ground to a stop again.

“What’s wrong?” Caro asked, concern lacing her voice.

“Nothing. Have you seen this view?”

The trail bent at this location because the ground gave way to a rapid descent exposing the cliff’s natural geological features. There was a safety rail near the cliff’s edge, but the trail turned well before it leaving a large grassy shoulder dotted with trees. From this position Julie could see Lake Superior filling the horizon beyond a sea of trees. With the sun out the water seemed to sparkle in the distance. It was one of the most beautiful things she had seen since moving to Minnesota.

Julie dismounted and pushed her bike into the shoulder. She unbuckled her helmet. “What do you think of having lunch here? I doubt we’ll find nicer scenery.”

“Sounds perfect,” Caro grinned, immediately relaxing. It was obvious she wanted Julie to rest more before exerting herself again. Lunch was the perfect excuse for her to make Julie rest and for Julie to convince Caro she was fine.

While Julie pulled a couple bottles of apple juice out of her bag, Caro produced a UMD fleece blanket. She laid it across the grass as a picnic blanket then dumped all the food she brought with on top of it. Julie was a little more careful setting her provisions down then arranged everything to look nice. Then she settled herself on top of the crested ‘M’ on the blanket, while Caro sat on Champ the Bulldog. There was a sea of food between them.

“I think we packed more than we needed,” Julie laughed.

“Isn’t that how a picnic’s supposed to go?”

“Yeah, but isn’t that a lot of excess weight to haul around on a bike?”

“Be happy I didn’t insist on tying an actual basket to my rack,” Caro said. “I wanted to take you on a proper picnic. You deserve the best.”

They ate while making small talk, mostly about the food and weather. Julie couldn’t believe Caro had packed two hefty slices of apple pie wrapped in saran. Since they didn’t have any plates or utensils, Julie simply unwrapped her piece as she ate it to keep her hands from getting sticky. Winter had lingered up here far longer than Julie expected and, while she was used to more snow back east, Minnesota had been bitterly cold for months. Now it was May and they were experiencing true spring, which was her favorite season. While Caro turned out to suffer from hay fever, Julie didn’t have any seasonal allergies and she could simply enjoy everything being alive and growing again, plus all the baby animals were cute.

The only downside about spring was that the school year was at an end and that also meant her contract was almost up. Julie had been putting it off, but she needed to have a serious talk with Caro about personal and professional aspirations. She didn’t want to have this conversation, however she was running out of time to at least give Caro a head’s up about her plans. She didn’t want to blindside the other woman. Now seemed like as good a time as any.

“My contract ends in June,” Julie said. 

“Mine too,” Caro said.

“I’m not renewing my contract with Duluth,” Julie said, staring intently at Caro to gauge her reaction. Caro didn’t seem to have one, but she had always been excellent at schooling her reactions. “I have learned a lot about coaching this year and I appreciate everything Shannon has done for me, but I don’t mesh well with her style. This has been an essential experience to my development as a coach and honestly, if the national team didn’t want me for team development before Vancouver I’d stick it out for another year. This is not me leaving you.”

“I understand.”

“Do you?” Julie asked, frowning. Her girlfriend had gone wooden, which she usually did to protect her feelings.

“Oui. I am also leaving Duluth.”

“You are?” Julie asked. That was the last thing she had expected. Shannon loved having Caro on staff.

“I am returning home to Montreal,” Caro said. “I can play for the Montreal Stars there while chair the Hockey women’s High Performance Advisory Committee. I was also offered an assistant coaching position with our U18 team, which is why I initially decided to leave Duluth.”

“Why didn’t you tell me any of this?” Julie asked.

“I… didn’t know how,” Caro shrugged helplessly. “I knew Hockey USA would want you on their team, they would be fools not to, and you would rightly pick that. I guess I wanted to pretend we could stay like this forever.”

“What does this mean for us? Are we over in June?”

“No.” Caro glared at Julie like she had just said the most insulting thing she could think of. “Je t’ aime.”

“I still don’t speak French, Caro,” Julie snapped.

“I love you,” Caro said. Julie froze. This was the first time Caro had ever directly told her she felt that way, at least in English. There was no ambiguity. “I have loved you for years, Julie. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. After Vancouver come to Montreal. This is not a marriage proposal, but we could marry there. It’s legal in Canada.”

“I don’t speak French,” Julie repeated dumbly. “Montreal needs me like… like a fish needs a bicycle.”

Whether or not Caro called it a proposal, it totally was. She was the one who brought up the M word and it had thrown her for a loop. Her parents had never once suggested that anything inherent about Julie was a disappointment, but she knew it hurt them that they’d never see her in a wedding gown. It hurt her that her father would never walk her down the aisle or that she’d be able to bring her wife to family events. Her mother had been sending her newspaper clippings about the bill HB7395 and then after that failed the appeal of _Kerrigan v. Commissioner of Public Health_ because she hoped things would change for Julie’s sake. Julie wanted to hope as well, but it hurt too much to even think about it, so she thought about hockey instead. Pouring her everything into hockey meant she at least could affect her destiny, which was not something she could do concerning the state of Connecticut.

“I need you,” Caro said. “Montreal needs you too. The Stars would be imbeciles to turn down the best American hockey player if she wanted to join their team.”

“What, you can’t call me the best player period?” Julie teased. She knew she wasn’t the best, but she wanted to poke at Caro’s nationalism.

“You’re not Canadian, but we could fix that,” Caro stumbled over her words and stared down at her lap as she blushed. “If you’d like.”

“Caro, I love you too, but I bleed red, white, and blue,” Julie said, raising her head. “I am proud to be an American and if we ever did get married I would not give up my US citizenship.”

“I understand.” Caro sagged, but she still smiled at Julie. “Would you still consider living in Montreal? I want to build a home there with you.”

“Ask me again after I kick your butt at Vancouver,” Julie grinned. “You might feel differently after the US brings home gold.”

“Win or lose, it doesn’t matter,” Caro said, shaking her head. “I will always want you.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Julie said. They finished their meal and packed up their things. Just after they started biking again a thought occurred to Julie. “Could we get a cat?”

“I prefer dogs,” Caro said.

“I like dogs too, but I’ve always wanted a cat,” Julie said. “We were never able to have one when I was growing up.”

“Would a cat make you more likely to move to Montreal?”

“Well, a cute bundle of fluff, whiskers, and claws might distract me from the fact I moved to a foreign country where I don’t speak the language.”

“Its Canada, Julie, all of our signs are bilingual,” Caro deadpanned.

“And you’re trying to make me move to the French Canadian part,” Julie reminded her. “Need I point out again that I don’t speak French?”

“I guess a year and a half should be enough time for us to agree on a name,” Caro sighed. “I don’t want to be embarrassed shouting it if the cat ever got loose.”

“Perfect,” Julie grinned. “Hey, could you stop for a second?”

Caro immediately screeched to a halt and turned to look worriedly at Julie, who took a little longer to stop. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Julie laughed. She cupped Caro’s face with her hands. “I just couldn’t kiss you while cycling.”

Before Caro could say anything Julie leaned in and kissed her. She vigorously responded. They made out until the bike pressing into Julie’s thigh became too annoying to ignore. However, it did remind her that if she ever wanted to get off this trail she had to start cycling again. When she pulled back Caro looked a little dazed from the attention. So Julie blew her a kiss and started peddling as fast as she could. She heard a yelp and soon Caro was beside her. While Julie knew she couldn’t keep up in a bike race, she knew that she’d spend the rest of her life racing neck and neck with Caro toward all of life’s hurdles. Together with Caro Julie wasn’t afraid of the future, it was an alluring array of opportunities.

**Author's Note:**

> I've had a lot of fun writing about Julie and Caro during their time in Duluth. Just as that was a short term situation, this questionably fish-pun titled series also draws to a close. Thanks so much for reading.


End file.
